Refrigerator Rescue #1

400TX that expired in 2013

Baseline 400 ISO exposure shot on the Leica M10 used for testing the old film.

While I’m not setting any records, using expired film 11 years out of date 400-speed film is not something I prefer. I was so giddy with the results from the ancient 100-speed film, ancient Diafine, and ancient Ilford Rapid Fix in my last go-around, I decided to chip away at the brick of 400TX languishing in my freezer. This time with a more analytical approach.

I wanted to know the state of affairs with base fog, shadow speed, and all the other parameters to successfully use that old brick of Tri-X. I already had an idea the Diafine worked similarly to when I first mixed it, now I wanted to know how good (or bad) that HC-110 developer was. The bottle certainly appeared degraded. Instead of clear yellow syrup, it was dark orange and murky. The plastic bottle had imploded due to the small air space at the top presumably being gobbled up via oxidation of the secret recipe.

Testing The 400TX With Diafine

I loaded up a roll in the Leica M4 and made 36 frames side-by-side with my Leica M10. I used the M10 to get a good baseline film exposure at ISO 400. I then made two exposures on the Tri-X, one at 400 and one at 200.

Theoretically, fresh Tri-X should look great with more than enough shadow density at box speed using Diafine. The one-stop overexposure was compensation for fog and loss of speed due to age. Diafine from my experience produces very low contrast highlights. After souping the old Tri-X my expectations of low contrast highlights were met merely by seeing the negatives. Time to get technical…

I scanned the negatives using my Canon 5DsR and a well-diffused strobe. More on that another day if anyone is interested. Time for some analysis.

Leica M4 test shot at 400 ISO in Diafine. Note how compressed the highlights look. If I adjust the white endpoint to mirror the M10 whites instead of showing max dynamic range the two shots look similar.

I pulled them into Capture One (anything with levels or curves controls would work). A quick explaination of my methodology would be helpful. Possibly useful for those of you using a camera to scan film as well.

• I inverted the curve making the negative a positive. Now the blacks are the highlights and the whites are the shadows.

• I set the white point of the curve to the film base (see the right hand of the curves control). This is now absolute black. The specific brightness value was 219. The absolute value is dependent on my camera exposure but as long as it was below 255 it’s fine.

• I set the black point to a fully exposed, fully developed frame of maximum density film that was part of the film leader. This would be the theoretical maximum highlight density possible with the film and developer. The specific value in this case was 17. Again this is specific to my “scanning” exposure but fine as long as it was not 0.

All of this was to get a numerical baseline that I could reproduce and compare to the HC-110 as well as get a good idea of the shadow speed of the film in both developers.

Testing 400TX With HC-110

Old film with really old HC-110. I had to decide where to start in terms of development time and dilution. I settled on using a stronger dilution of B and adding 10% to HC-110’s recommended time.

Why, you ask; The HC-110 certainly has lost some degree of activity, I just don’t have a clue with how much. It also has a minimum amount of concentrate per roll based on fresh activity. If I used a more dilute solution I ran far more risk of it completely pooping out. Dilution B is extremely strong, so much so many films require extremely short development times that are not viable. Above 70F dilution B is not used much. Here are the results so that we can compare them to the Diafine.

Leica M4 with 400TX and HC-110 dilution B. Lower fog, more contrast, and with a bit more development time will be just about perfect.

Using the exact same setup, we can see that the black point (max film density for highlights) is not only similar it turned out identical - 17. On the other end, there’s a material difference in the base+fog density. The white point (absolute black) is 236 vs 219. So what does this mean?

• First off is that the HC-110 works and is viable to process the rest of that brick of 400TX.

• It certainly confirms HC-110’s reputation of having low fog, at least compared to Diafine.

• I see no significant difference in shadow speed between the two developers but this film certainly does not have any tolerance for anywhere near one stop of underexposure that is typical of 400TX.

• Based on the one-stop over-exposure frames that seems to be too much compensation for the age, so it looks faster than 200 but slower than when it was fresh.

• The HC-110 does produce markedly more contrast even with the black and white points neutralized but not nearly what I expected given the use of dilution B and the 10% extended time. The HC-110 is certainly less active than when fresh based on my prior experience.

I’m going to use a semi-zone exposure methodology being fully aware at 400 ISO there is zero flexibility and err on the side of a bit more exposure when measuring for zone III (two stop under for deep shadow). For general shooting, I’ll probably use 320 ISO. Both of those decisions go hand-in-hand with 25-30% more time at dilution B. I am guessing about that extension of development time based on what were zone VIII (3 stops over mid-gray) exposure in my test frames vs max density measurements.

Conclutions

While it is certainly not wise, I am going to use these ancient materials for actual project work. I am going to use them soon. Stay tuned, the next Refigerator Resscue will be a far more methodical approach to the brick of Legacy Pro 100 (aka Acros 100v1).